Observations:
I am a student teacher at Ballentine Elementary. The teacher in my first grade class has been at this school for many years and is very good at her job. She is very welcoming and cares about each of her students so much. She asks how each of them are each day and makes sure they have a comfortable relationship with her. I enjoy her teaching techniques because she plans fun activities that keep the students engaged throughout the lesson. Many of her lessons are include videos the students can sing along to, lets the students use individual white boards to practice problems instead of a sheet of paper, and lets them move around the room. She also takes “brain breaks” during lessons and lets the kids dance around to songs they like so they don’t get to tired focusing so long on lessons.
Learning Experiences:
So far this week I have been to my classroom twice and have already learned so much. Getting to see how different teachers must plan their lessons based on the age of their students is so important. One thing I realized was so important was taking “brain breaks” for young students. Its very hard for them to focus for long terms without getting tired and loosing interest. Some of these brain breaks can include them dancing to songs they like which gives them a break from eh lesson and wakes them up if they are tired. Im excited to see what else I will learn and what I can help teach the students as well.
Reflections:
After reflecting back on this week, I have already began growing an interest for teaching that I wasn’t expecting. Although Im still not sure if this is a career I want to pursue when I get older, I have been considering it this year while taking this course and my interest is growing while Im going through field experience. I enjoy teaching younger children and be able to really get to experience teaching in action. Im excited to see how this experience goes and I hope to get to learn new things throughout the experience and be able to reflect back on it with a strong teacher heart.
Stories to Share:
This week, one story I found interesting during my field experience was when my class was doing their “stations”. This is when the class breaks into different parts of the room and completes different activities related to reading. Some of the stations include sitting down quietly and reading a book to yourself, playing reading games on a computer, and listening to stories on a video recorder. While the class was doing these stations, the teacher wanted me to walk around and listen to the kids read books out loud to me. I was so impressed at how advanced they were at reading at such an early age. One young girl was reading a book and as I was listening to her read I noticed how she would pause when a hard word came up and would sound it out until she got it right and get so happy as soon as I said it was correct. I loved how smart the kids were at reading at such a young age and the happiness they got from doing something so simple as reading a word right that was hard for them. This helped me understand that when I soon teach, I want to incorporate techniques that reward students when they do good because I know it makes them feel good about themselves and that’s important to me.
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